Little Things

We are changing the composition of Earth’s atmosphere, with profound consequences for the environment and our well-being. Tiny aerosol particles are globally responsible for much of the health effects and mortality related to air pollution and play key roles in regulating Earth’s climate via their critical influence on both radiation balance and cloud formation. The ERC Starting Grant SURFACE project will demonstrate and quantify potential surface impacts in the atmosphere, by first directly characterizing realistic atmospheric surfaces, and then trace fingerprints of specific surface properties in a hierarchy of experimental and modeled aerosol processes and atmospheric effects. Amanda Vähämäki’s «Little Things» is an auto-fictional short story where miniature-sized characters and floating nanoparticles discuss about climate change.